1. Field of the invention
This invention relates to a wood planing machine, more particularly to a wood planing machine having a shaving thickness indicator that indicates the thickness of shaving which is shaved from a workpiece by the wood planing machine.
2. Description of the related art
FIGS. 1 to 3 illustrate a conventional wood planing machine 10 that is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,771,949. The wood planing machine 10 includes a base 11 with upstanding posts 12 disposed at the corners of the base 11 for supporting a cutter carriage 13 thereon, and a height adjusting unit (not shown) for adjusting height of the cutter carriage 13 via a handle 14 which is mounted on a top end of the wood planing machine 10. The cutter carriage 13 confines with the base 11 a wood passageway therebetween for passage of a workpiece 20. A shaving thickness indicator is mounted on a front lower end of the cutter carriage 13, and includes a resilient engaging member 32 fixed to the cutter carriage 13, a pointer 31 mounted pivotally on the cutter carriage 13 and connected to the resilient engaging member 32, and a scale 33 attached to the cutter carriage 13 adjacent to the pointer 31 and stamped with indicia for incrementally representing the thickness of shaving removed from the workpiece 20 during a pass through the wood passageway. The resilient engaging member 32 is resiliently deflectable, and is adapted to be displaced resiliently by the workpiece 20 to actuate rotation of the pointer 31 when the cutter carriage 13 is moved downwardly to permit the resilient engaging member 32 to contact the workpiece 20.
The wood planing machine 10 is disadvantageous in that it is relatively inconvenient for an operator to view the scale 33 while operating the handle 14 to adjust the height of the cutter carriage 13. Moreover, there is a tendency for the resilient engaging member 32 to experience elastic fatigue after being in use for a period of time, thereby resulting in poor accuracy on the desired thickness of the shaving removed from the workpiece 20.